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Re: Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age?

Clarke's Third Law applies: Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.

And to Fred's point, you can't really begin to talk about things clearly
unless there is some basic understanding of what is happening as well as
some awareness of the appropriate terminology. Try explaining something
with only abstract terms and it quickly becomes confusing, and one falls
back on terms like "thingamajig" and "whoozie".

Sharon's husband's comments about "internet is broken" was then
clarified to "email isn't working" and then "wireless connection is
down" shows an ever-more increasing specificity in both understanding
and correct terminology. Both are necessary unless you want to remain at
the level of "it doesn't work" ...

My 2¢,

John Garison

PS - And Al, I know where lumber comes from. My family includes a long
line of sawmillers, and my first job over college break was hauling
lumber off a green chain. I eventually graduated to calculating the
board-feet in a log and driving a forklift. Any time you want to help me
rebuild some steps, let me know. Beers are on me.

Fred Ridder said the following on 8/19/2009 3:27 PM:
> But the posting from Daniel Ng that both you and Gene are responding to wasn't talking about people not knowing how things work. What he talked about was about how people "find it hard to talk or describe how they use" technology. He wasn't talking about people not knowing how a watch works; if he had been talking about watches, he would heve been talking about people not knowing how to describe how to keep a watch wound (but not overwound) or how to set the correct time. He wasn't talking about people not knowing how a car works; if he had been talking about cars, he would have been talking about an inability to describe things like operating the climate control or unlatching the hood.
>
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